100 years of Red Sox players and our very own dish soap

In spite of all the hype and media cliches leading up to it, you'd still have to be a stone not to have been touched by the Red Sox celebration of Fenway Park's 100th birthday.

In spite of all the hype and media cliches leading up to it, you'd still have to be a stone not to have been touched by the Red Sox celebration of Fenway Park's 100th birthday.

Yes, the park is now an icon (all the talking heads on TV tell us so) but even more touching than Fenway's birthday were the scenes of the old time Red Sox players returning to Fenway in their old jerseys to John Williams' fanfares.

Especially for folks like myself who are on the ... er "Back Nine" of life, watching icons like Carl Yastrzemski and Bill Monbouquette walking into that park again had to raise a little lump in your throat, or at least a knowing smile. Time, of course, has done its inevitable work on many of the old players, so seeing guys like Rico Petrocelli and Bill Lee as old men is a little like seeing your own life pass before your eyes.

Especially moving for me, and I'll bet a lot of others, was seeing Pumpsie Green (who finally broke the Red Sox color barrier in 1959 long after other major league teams — no thank you Tom Yawkey of South Carolina). But also moving were later minority players like Oil Can Boyd, Mo Vaughn, and Pedro Martinez who had to transcend the challenge of being a player of color for a franchise with a largely white fan base. Manny Ramirez, for all his problems with the Sox, made a big mistake in staying away.

Even Terry Francona — who predictably received the largest applause of the day — was able to put Larry Lucchino's bad blood behind him in honor of the fans.

Thank you, Terry, for two world championships ... ahem, that's two more than ... who is that used car salesman who's managing the Sox now?

Before I forget, I especially enjoyed seeing the old minor-role players like Bernie Carbo, Denny Doyle and Kevin Millar who were once a big, big deal around here for their clutch performances. In many ways, it's the second-tier players who win a special place in the heart of Red Sox fans — the underdogs for the underdogs.

Of course no Red Sox celebration would be complete without Bill Buckner once again proving he still has the class to transcend the ignominity of the now mythic bad play that marred his otherwise great career. Thanks again, Buck.

Red Sox Nation — a lot of it is hype and myth. But it's also our own hype and myth.

It's the history of our lives here in New England.

When the Red Sox beat the Twins to so unexpectedly win that long-ago 1967 American League pennant I was a 13-year-old listening on the radio in our cellar with my brother and a kid who lived up the street.

For boys who grew up with ninth place Red Sox finishes in a 10-team league, I remember it was like winning the lottery.

We grew up with the ignominity of believing we in Boston were from a second-rate, cold-weather city, with a third-rate team in the most American of sports.

So our friend Norman, my brother Dave and myself began crazily jumping around, slapping hands, and jumping around some more when the Sox won that final game of the season beating the Twins.

The Sox championship was a validation. Boston really could play baseball, it really counted, we thought.

And when the Cardinals' Bob Gibson shut the Sox' World Series hopes down seven games later, it set off that long quest for a true championship for my generation. The fact that it took another 37 years to realize meant the Red Sox quest was the quest of our own lives.

Victory in 2004 was somehow a final validation — somehow a final proof that life really can overcome ovewhelming odds.

It's all sentimental, vicarious stuff, of course. The Red Sox players are rarely from Greater Boston, and in reality, their lives have very little to do with the small-stage sagas of most of us who follow them.

Or maybe not.

The Boston baseballers have somehow managed to become a team for the ages. In spite of the fact they're now shrewdly grown, manufactured and sold like dish soap, they've become our very own dish soap.

Go Sox.

Jack Spillane is the executive news editor of The Standard-Times and southcoasttoday.com. He can be reached at jspillane@s-t.com or 508-979-4472.

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